The Centre of Lies
by kdthree
Summary: An old medical file, a new DVD and mysteries Jack had thought long forgotten This is a Crossover with the Prentender Series
1. Chapter One of the Centre of Lies

TITLE:The Centre of Lies

AUTHOR:KD3 aka KRISS DREMAK

EMAIL:

STATUS:finished in four chapters

CATEGORY:ANGST/Crossover

WARNING:Rough language / torture

PAIRING :Jack and Janet!

SEASON:AU but probably before 5

RATING :PG13

(nc17 Separated for specific lists or archives

Nc-17 portion available on request)

SPOILERS:Broca Divide, Tangent; Need and A Matter of Time

Primal Yearnings (my original au for BD)

SUMMARY:A video tape arrives and threatens sanity

All inspired from the line:

"**I've done the strapped to a bed drugged thing before."**

ARCHIVED :Jackfic/Crossgate/JackFicNC17,SG1Darkfic,

WWOMB/SG1H/C Zone, Jack/Janet list

and any others who would like

FILE SIZE:309kb in Word ( plain text available)

Dedication:To Brandon and Green Eyed Monster for their inspiration And Original Cyn for the beta, encouragement, and just taking the time out to bother to offer her services as a beta.

Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE. The characters mentioned in this story are the property of and Gekko Film Corp. The SG-1 together with the names, titles and back story are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp., Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This Fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment.

All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.

(c) 2004 KD³ Tales from the Gate Kristine "Kriss" Dremak 2004

**CHAPTER ONE**

Janet Fraiser pulled her shoulder length brownish red hair back into a soft ponytail at the nape of her neck and prepared for another day as CMO of Stargate command. Things could never be considered routine when you had to watch fine men and women walk into an active wormhole and wait for their return. How many had not come back, and how many had come back broken, bleeding and even dying. The biggest offender was the Second in Command of the SGC, Commanding officer of the flagship team, SG1, and the man who had recently become her lover, Colonel Jack O'Neill.

After the Broca Divide dark side light side virus incident, their subsequent kidnapping, the Colonel's re-infection by parties unknown, and their daring escape; they had grown closer and the inevitable happened. Jack had stopped by one night to talk, to see how Cassie, her recently adopted alien daughter, was doing, and one kiss of affection lead to a night of urgent lovemaking. To her surprise, Jack had professed a deep affection for her since the incident yet both were not ready to use the word love, loving or being in a state of love.

For now they would keep the relationship a close guarded secret. It would not do to let it seep over into their military world, save for an occasional wink or a gentle touch that appeared innocent enough. Their relationship needs were not to be hurried but were going to be given time to open slowly, now that the clumsy hurtle of sex had been jumped. With that out of the way, they could build a mutual friendship into love.

Janet walked into her infirmary to find her two best nurses staring at an exam table covered in file boxes, filed to the brim.

"What in the heck is all this?" She planted herself in front of a box and looked at the two nurses.

"The Pentagon released more information on the "Gate" from the experiments in the 40's. Most of this stuff is old medical records. For once there is no real inventory." Lt. Denise Kenny said looking at the manifest. "Four boxes, Dr. Jackson got five." She added as if that was going to make them feel lucky.

"Get an airman to do the inventory, then we can decide from the list what we need or find a place to conveniently lose this stuff." Janet crinkled her nose noting the smell of moldy paper.

"Ah, Dr. Fraiser, I think you may want to look at this right now." The voice was anxious and came from Lt. Nicole Tierney, who was holding up a rather recent looking file, which was wrapped around an older thicker file. Her eyes were wide as she handed it to Fraiser.

The file was not that old and was marked CLASSIFIED.

**Medical File/ Psychiatric report **

**Subject: O'Neill, Jonathan J., Captain **

The date was from the very early 1980's.

"Must be a mistake. Let me check it out. Who's off world?" She asked casually but a cold curdled feeling was staring in her guts.

"SG 3, 7, 9, and SG1 are due back today." Denise announced looking through the other box.

Janet already knew Jack was due back today. She had managed to be standing behind General Hammond when they had left. Jack had turned and given Hammond a tip of the ball cap and her wink before he had stepped through the event horizon.

"Fine," she was preoccupied now as she opened the file. "I'll be in my office. If any Goa'uld attacks, come get me." A large mug of coffee was poured, sweetened, and carried to her private office.

There was a note inside the folder and a DVD.

Original videotape degraded image transferred.

Well, there was one thing she could do. The TV/DVD/VCR combo in her office was turned on and the shiny disk was placed in the drawer. As it slid closed she began to read. There was the usual medical military preamble which provided physicians, facilities, and participants. Janet skimmed down to the main body of the report.

Subject: O'Neill, Jonathon, J. Captain Air Force, currently assigned to Special Operations was found unconscious and the victim of torture when he failed to report after a thirty day leave. His condition was serious. The tox screens had found traces of multiple psychotropic drugs and Dilaudid, synthetic heroin, in his system. It appears the Captain had been kidnapped and held for nearly the entirety of his leave by parties unknown.

The injuries to his wrists, ankles, and neck are similar to those made when under restraint. They are additional contusions and laceration consistent with both offense and defense wounds. It seems our good Captain did put up a struggle. Our main concern was the obvious head injury and resulting concussion.

Janet took a sip of coffee to try and ease the tightness that was beginning to strangle her. What the hell had happened to Jack? She continued on.

The Captain was unconscious for two days while he was treated for his wounds and internal injuries. Upon regaining consciousness, he could not remember, initially, what had transpired during those thirty days. As his recovery continued, the Captain began to regain his memory and was able to provide a detailed description of the building he was held in but not how he got there. He explained the last thing he had remembered was arriving at his off base apartment and was packing to visit his finance'. It was to have been a surprise visit. The Captain has no recollection of how he escaped.

All tests that were run on the Captain proved he was indeed telling the truth. He remembered being strapped down and repeatedly injected while he was told to admit to being someone else. He had no idea who

"Those people" were. He could not give them what they wanted. They had the wrong man.

This video tape was found on the Captain's person. The quality is bad but it does completely support his statements. The original video tape has been handed over to the Office of Special Investigation. Due to the Captain's position with Special Operation he was run through multiple psyche tests and evaluations before he was deemed to be recovered both physically and mentally.

The authorities were not called in due to the nature of the Captain's assignments and the delicacy of the matter. It would not due to embarrass the Air Force and it was determined that this case had just been an aberration and in no way was anything other than a case of mistaken identity. The heroic levels and the endurance of the Captain were impressive and he has been moved to a more select team. It is very apparent that all attempts of mind control were ineffective on the young man. O'Neill has recovered fully and has a rather flippant irreverent humor that is both genuine and perhaps a shield from pity and or concern which he finds a weakness to accept.

He is being placed on a list of young officers to watch for particularly hazardous missions. Captain O'Neill will either end up a dead hero or an old General with a chest full of medals.

The signature was of the evaluation medical officer, a Colonel J. Michael Brooks.

The rest of the materials were the medical chart and portions of interrogations ? the OSI officers. There was also a transcript marked as text for the tape. Janet felt anger boil up inside of her as she read the medical chart. Simple injuries and signs of torture, beatings, malnutrition, and dehydration for at least three weeks explained how Jack had gone through a warm up, a sick practice run for his four months of captivity in an Iraqi prisons during Desert Storm. And grimly explained why he frequently could say, when injured again, "had worse."

Her eyes burned with acid tears of outrage but she forced herself to

turn the DVD player on.

The film was black and white, the quality poor and taken from an angle where it was obvious that the camera was high on a wall. The room was concrete block constructions, the only furniture, a table with tape recorder and microphone, and a medical bed. The sole occupant an unconscious young man, striped to his waist secured at wrists, ankles, across his naked chest with thick leather straps. The marks of torture were already visible on a battered face and bruising on the rib cage that could only be from a brutal beating. He was awake and testing the restraints.

Janet felt her hands covering her mouth. There was no mistaking the prisoner to be anyone but Jack; young, maybe twenty years younger, but still Jack. One hand went to touch the screen.

A man in silhouette entered the room and sat down at the table his back to the camera but he was able to see the young man.

"Shall we start again, John?" The man asked in a soft European accent, one that seemed not easily defined. The voice was firm yet there was a gentle concern to it.

"My name is O'Neill, Jonathon J. Captain, United States Air Force. Service Number...."

"John, you are a 'Pretender'. You created this personality after you left the Centre. You were too young. You should not have been out on your own."

"Wrong, I graduated high school and enlisted. You stupid son of a bitch, I went to Minneapolis and enlisted." The man on the table spat back.

"We can keep this going forever, John. You know I can only hold off the others for a short time. Their methods are more destructive than mine. You only need to admit it, John, and we will take you back into the fold." The voice continued slowly with gentle persuasion.

"I'm a Captain in the Air Force. I don't know who you think I am." Jack's voice hissed. "You are so very wrong."

"John, please do not insult my intelligence with your training and I.Q. You are smarter than a handful of M I T students put together. Do not think you can fool us... "

"Smart? Have you got the wrong boy?" Jack actually laughed but it turned into a coughing jag, the pain clear from shattered ribs and bruised lungs.

The man stood up and reached into the pocket of his coat and moved to Jack's side. In the camera, there was a flash of silver. Then the right hand was held up. A syringe was seen, a finger tapped against the glass to clear the air bubbles and a short spurt.

Jack's body convulsed and Janet knew she was watching him being injected again.

"The combination of drugs is a special mix. Actually, you should know you helped to perfect this cocktail. Some psychotropic drugs with Dilaudid, synthetic heroin for the addiction, Sodium Amytal as the truth serum and, as you had said, a twist of LSD. The interesting thing when used in the right combinations, they cause the patient pain as long as the subject resists. John, I grow tired of this game and watching you suffer. Admit who you are and you can be taken care of again. No more pain."

"Screw you!" Jack half screamed as his body continued to spasm, his muffled gasps of pain vocalized in jagged gasps and muted sobs as he thrashed. Blood began to seep down his left wrist as he struggled.

Janet felt the hot tears crest her lower eyelids and cascade through thick lashes down her face. She quickly wiped them away with the knuckle of her right index finger. She had lost her professional attachment; there was no reason to get so worked up this all happened years ago.

The Klaxon went off and the alarm lights began to flash red. She was out of her office and into the infirmary.

"SG1 is back early, reports from the control room says they may have injuries." Denise looked up at Janet while she was preparing her emergency code equipment.

What color was left drained which left Janet's face nearly as white as her lab coat. She suppressed the urge run to the gate room. It was impossible to wait but fate was kind and SG1 trooped into her infirmary like children who had been caught playing with matches.

"Janet," Sam acknowledged walking in preparing for the post mission physical by letting herself be guided to an exam table. Teal'c entered next, bowed his head and frowned at the nurse. Daniel followed next and, as he arched his eyebrows looked over his shoulder. Jack was coming in last, holding his left arm up against his chest. The look on his face was resigned amusement hiding his pain.

"Jack fell." Daniel announced in a smug little boy way,as he jumped up onto the exam table.

"With me, now!" Janet pointed at the Colonel and then towards curtain number four. The tone of her voice that of an angry mother. She pushed Jack onto the table and pulled the curtain around them. With a firm but gentle hand, she took his left hand and helped him extend it out.

"Shoulder? Wrist? Elbow?" She asked trying not to make eye contact.

"Wrist." Jack commented looking at her, seeing the darkness in her face.

Janet began to palpitate the wrist gently. She gasped audibly. How had she missed it? At the dorsum of his wrist just above the joint there was a scar, thin and faded with the years but there, just where it would be from the video.

"Doc?" Jack asked in a whisper as he felt her fingertips as they tracked over the scar. He had to prepare a lie. He'd blame it on Iraq, that was in his file, and it was something he could admit to.

Janet looked up at him another tear in her milk chocolate eyes. "X-ray, but I think it's just a strain." Her words were clipped as she tried to conceal her irritation in front of the assembled but her eyes bore into Jack, questioning him. He'd seen that face before when she searched his after he'd been infected and told her to experiment on him.

"My office, please, after ...." She walked away, searching for one of her nurses, each step she regained her control. "Take him to x-ray, splint it, or wrap it. Whatever is necessary. I'll be in my office. Get Warner to finish the exams. "

"What was all that about?" Sam wondered out loud, following Janet as she stalked out of the infirmary and into the corridor. The sound of her heels tapping out in an angry staccato.

Jack followed the nurse to x-ray feeling a black shadow from his past looming over his shoulder and the one glimmer of light in his life dimming with Janet's unexplained ire.

Janet returned to her office. As much as she did not want to continue watching the disc she had to find out more. She pressed play on the remote.

"John, the drugs are coming to their full effect on you. The sodium Amytal will make you answer. You need only relax. Remember all the time you have spent at the Centre, how we raised you, provided you with all that you needed to stimulate your intelligence. Because of you, there have been more chosen. Yes, more boys; a special few who are as talented as you, perhaps even smarter. "

"Don't know what you are talking about O'Neill Jonathan, J. Captain, born in Chicago, raised in Minnesota...." Jack's voice trailed off slurred with the narcotics. He no longer struggled against the restraints. Blood dripped off the table from his left wrist.

Janet was riveted to the screen. The picture changed and Jack was being dragged back into the room. His hands were bound in front of him with thick leather straps and his face was covered in blood. He collapsed in a corner.

"John, see what you have let them do to you? It has been fifteen days now, John." The man in the shadows continued. "You need the injection. I can make the pain go away."

"It's Jack, you rat bastard." Jack somehow managed to say through his busted swollen lips. Suddenly he clutched at his stomach and began to heave. The contents seem only to be blood and bile. "Jack O'Neill, Captain..." Jack began to shiver, he was going through withdrawal.

"John, tell me how you escaped? How did you get to Minnesota?"

"Stork brought me.... Mom did Dad; you know, dated, did it in the back seat and had to get married, crazy kids..." Spasms and another round of vomiting curtailed Jack's attempt at sarcasm.

"Withhold the drugs." A new voice stated gruffly.

"John, they want me to not give you the drugs that will make you feel better. Why are you doing this to yourself? Don't you remember all of our conversations? The scenarios we ran? The problems you were able to solve?"

"Fuck you." It was a low deadly threat from brown eyes that suddenly glowed with black hate directed with lucid concentration.

"Enough for now, John, I will be back I will leave you with your thoughts." The inquisitor walked out of frame.

The scene faded and started again with Jack now strapped to the medical table again. There was a struggle to breath; the drugs were causing respiratory complications.

"Hey, Janet, is that Jack?" It was Daniel. She hadn't heard him come into her office. She shut the video down.

"No, Daniel, are you alright?" Janet did her best to distract him. "Good, good. I'm glad. Is there something I can do for you?"

"No, just wanted to let you know that Jack only has a strained wrist. He's giving Denise all kind of hell. She's threatening to choke him with an elastic bandage: you know the usual." Daniel was trying to look at the file on her desk.

"Okay, fine. I have some work, Daniel; if you don't mind." Janet had him by the elbow and was leading him to the door.

"Are you sure that wasn't Jack on what, what you are watching. What is it you are watching?" Daniel was not about to let it go.

"Old training films," Janet had him over the threshold and into the hallway. She closed the door once he was clear of it.

A moment later, there was a knock on her door. Janet rose from behind her desk ready to give Daniel a size six suppository only to throw open the door and find Jack. His head was tilted to one side looking down from his six feet two to her five foot five, in pumps. His left wrist wrapped, apparently with duct tape, was now resting in a sling.

"Doc?" He asked taking a step inside. "You needed to see me?"

There were tears threatening like a storm in her jasper eyes. She leaned around him and locked her office door. Her defiance burned into him.

"Explain this?" Without looking back at the monitor she pulled the remote from her pocket and hit the play button.

The screen blossomed into black and white as Jack looked away from Janet's angry face to view the picture. The voice he heard first, the room next and then an image that he had never seen before, but had starred in. A trickle of sweat ran down his back and his stomach tightened for a second before he gained control.

"John, tell me why you left? Just admit it and I will give you the injection."

"No, Jack, not John, wrong person." He was balled up hugging his midsection. Defiance still in his voice as he lay on the concrete floor in his spoiled clothes, the physical withdrawal had peaked in all of the textbook possibilities.

"Please, John, I know better. I raised you. You can become anyone, anything you want. WE taught you how; you have the intelligence and the knowledge. John, you are a Pretender, but do not pretend with me."

"No, wrong person, I'm Jack O'Neill, two l's."

Jack watched himself, battered and addicted, look up from the corner of a room that had been his prison for thirty days. This looked to be about day twenty. The need for the drug was winning; the other drugs were causing psychotic visions. They were going to stop feeding him the next day. Starvation, addiction, and torture lying in his own vomit, excrement, and blood; it all came back to him.

"It was a long time ago." Jack whispered his eyelids at half-mast as he was overcome with the memories of the stampede of savageries he had endured. There on the tape and then in Iraq and most recently on Ne'tu. Sokar's little cocktail had been nothing compared to what he had endured on the tape.

"This wasn't in your medical file. I thought, I mean Iraq... was ... the only time..." Janet was stammering, "You were so young." Tears were starting she was helpless to contain.

"I got old fast." Jack turned away and reached down and took the remote out of Janet's hand. She broke and plowed into his arms. Janet sobbed openly.

"I can't stand to see you hurt." Janet pulled away and looked at him her lips quivering in anger and anguish.

Jack took her face in his right hand. Janet rested her cheek into his palm.

"Honey, it was a long time ago." Jack whispered into her hair pulling her back into the safety of his arm. In truth, it was not him comforting her but him taking comfort in her, knowing how much she cared, to know that his soul was worthy of someone caring this much, to shed tears over him.

"A long time ago." He picked up her face with a fingertip so he could kiss her tear-moistened lips. "I'm okay." He whispered on her lips. Her still trembling lips opened for him. Her tongue sought out his hungrily, the need to be assured in physical passion, to be reassured with a kiss.

The kiss ended and Jack held Janet against him swaying slightly to calm her, to reassure himself. His eyes looked into the face of the inquisitor who was, now for the first time, staring up at him from twenty years in the past.

"How did you get this tape?" He had to know as he carefully extracted himself from her arms. Jack moved to have his back to her so Janet would not see the uncontrolled rage that contorted his face.

"It came with several boxes of files the Pentagon just released to us. Colonel, what?" Janet didn't really know what to ask him.

The Colonel was the cold slap Jack needed. He embraced it; he slipped back into it, the military mind, and all business modes. "Has anyone else seen this? You're going to have to show it to Hammond, aren't you?" The tone was lifeless, concrete plain.

"As your doctor, I could withhold it."

"As the Chief Medical Officer of the SGC, you can't." Jack finished for her as he nodded his head in understanding. He felt her small yet strong hand on his arm turning him around.

"I know, I know." Jack took her face again in his good hand. "Show him and let me know what he decides. I've got a mission report to do... looks like I get to dictate it." He waggled the fingers, painfully, of his left wrist.

"Ice it. Take the pain... "Janet froze, now she knew why Jack hated d

drugs.

Jack knew she understood what she didn't know was the video, if it was on the disk, only got worse from here. The hallucinations, the medical intervention when they couldn't wake him up, he could remember the feel of the leather straps on his wrists and seeing John die on the mission in East Germany over and over again. And then there had been the detox time, and the first time he was written up in medical journal, and put on display as the one whom....

"Go home, Doctor's orders." Janet interrupted his thought. "Ice it. The General will have to wait for his report." She reached up to steal a kiss. "I'll stop by to check on you after my tour." Janet had collected herself inspired by Jack's suddenly pulling back into military mode; however, the second kiss with his tongue exploring her mouth was not.

Jack hated to break the embrace, but his mind was already moves ahead of everyone. His mind was everywhere taking in all possible scenarios, preparing his answers over and over again like till he could field dress them with as much ease as his P-90. As prepared as he thought he could make himself he had to get out. The walls, the tons of mountain over him suddenly too claustrophobic; cement walls closing in on him again, and again, Jack didn't bother to change but slipped his .9mm in his waistband and signed out.

Daniel and Sam sipped coffee in the conference room Teal'c and General Hammond as they finished what seemed to be a very animated conversation.

"Dr. Fraiser has sent the Colonel home for the rest of the day. How did he injure himself?" Hammond asked sitting down.

Janet arrived as the debriefing was ending and before Daniel could answer the question. She carried the file and the disk with her. Hammond knew immediately that the petite doctor was about to present him with something grave.

"Dismissed." Hammond announced and motioned for Janet to follow him into his office. She closed the door after herself.

"Doctor?" He steeled himself for what was coming next. Janet sat down and handed him the file as she did.

"What is it?"

"It came from the Pentagon, I think by accident, with other medical reports. It's," Janet paused for effect," It's another missing piece of the O'Neill puzzle. He was not happy to see this, sir. It's not in any of his medical files."

Hammond opened the file and read the summary, looking up at Janet occasionally. The DVD lasted nearly two hours. Hammond was white with the horror of it, yet his face was expressionless, which if others knew him, this was more of a tell.

"The Colonel said it was your decision as to what to do with it from here." Janet had forced herself into being medically objective while she endured a second watching.

Hammond took the file and disk and placed them in the hidden safe in the credenza behind his back. "It won't see the light of day again unless the Colonel wants it to. Is that alright with you, Doctor?"

Her answer was a smile. Hammond had no idea on how many levels she was grateful.

Jack turned the key in the lock of his front door. The moment he let it open, he sensed something amiss. The .9mm was taken out of the waistband and the safety silently slipped off. He slid the door open soundlessly and cleared the hallway, the pistol extended out and finger just outside of the trigger guard. He stepped down into his living room. Jack turned to see a tall young man, mid thirties black hair step from his kitchen.

"Did the file and tape arrive?" The stranger asked, his hands rose in the air.

"How did you arrange that?" Jack snapped. "You NID or what?"

"What's the NID? And you should know how easy it is, you perfected that little tactic didn't you, John?"

"It's Jack. Don't you people ever learn?" Jack snorted disgustedly.

"What people, John? From the Centre? Or those of us who got out because of you?" The stranger continued.

"It was you; you're the one who set me loose, back then." Jack recognized the boy in the man.

"My name is Jarod." The youth spoke softly in a calming way.

"Nice to meet ya, again. How the hell did you get into my house?" Jack took a step forward; he was not to be placated.

Jarod took another step forward and his hand picked up a stack of red notebooks from the dining room table. "We have to talk, John. The Centre has new friends, maybe this NID you are talking about. They are going through all the old files. "

Jack let the hammer down slowly and walked to his patio window. He looked out at his back yard and just enjoyed it, his home, and his world.

"It's been almost three decades. Why now?" He whispered, but in the silence of the room Jarod could easily hear it.

"Because, you were their first, their best, the brightest; the model for the rest of us." Jarod put a hand on Jack's shoulder and looked out the window with him. "Nice yard, home." There was a wisp of sadness Jarod's voice, a longing for roots.

"I should have killed Raines and Parker when I had a chance before they killed Catherine." Jack set the .9mm down. "Crap." He muttered. "Damn you, Sydney." Jack cursed within the confines of his own mind.

A short time later, Jarod drank tea while Jack drank beer, several beers in fact. Jarod was methodically going over the selection of red folders, giving Jack a summary of each.

"These are just a few of the people that I have helped since I left the Centre. Sydney would never talk about you; he intimated that there had been another, the first one. I found out, I learned, studied, and remembered. Because of you, I have been able to save some people, only one at a time but...."

Jarod continued to prattle on but Jack was listening to his own thoughts. Saving one person at a time, or saving this world or some other world, what did it matter? How ironic; here he was an emotional cripple with crutches expected to push the wheelchairs.

All he wanted was a day, one day to be nothing else, no one else. Just a day, to be Jack, with no memories or secrets, just a day to languish between Janet's alabaster thighs, the woman he had allowed himself to fall in love with. Just that one day to make love to her, to pleasure her and receive pleasure all without consequences and with the most important factor, to be safe in her loving arms. Jack shook himself back to reality.

"What do you want with me? From me? What do I have to do?" The resignation in Jack's voice denser than lead.

"Nothing, I just wanted to meet you and tell you to be vigilant. You act like you don't remember any of it."

"I didn't till I saw the playback today. I remember now! Remind me to find some painful way to thank you for that." Jack finished his beer and went to retrieve another. Like a country western song, he was doing his damnedest to drown some memories and the lies he had just dished out.

"But I don't understand?" Jarod was genuinely confused.

"You're too smart to play the simple bastard with me. I drugged myself. It took me six months to get the right combination, and it worked for years. I finally believed I forgot for all those years until they found me that day. Do you know what they did to me? Things that weren't on the video, things not even those sick fucks in Iraq would have never considered doing to a child; I was all grown up, a man." Jack let the words issue forth in thick concentrated fury, He only stopped to try to sort out the memories. Iraq and the Centre were blending together.

"I've had enough Jarod, done enough. I 'm doing enough. John never existed. I can't let him live again, even for a second." Jack was clutching the beer bottle tightly, knowing that if he let it out of his grip, his hand would be shaking. No one could ever see that; no fears, no tears, no weakness, no emotions; he had mastered these arts at the Centre long before his commando training. Sara had been the only one to tap into the buried vein of humanity, then Charlie and now Janet.

"You can't forget?" Was it a statement, an accusation, or a question? Jarod was not sure that it wasn't all three. It was now that he could see the haunted pain in Jack's brown eyes, a pain that only another Pretender could see, could know, could recognize for Jarod had seen glimpses of it in his own reflection.

"You'll always have a sanctuary here with me. I'll get you keys and the code to the alarm," Jack finally looked at the young man, at Jarod. Yes, he knew the name and he remembered it all. His days at the Centre from when he was only six till his escape at sixteen and he remembered the boy, who was about Charlie's age, who had crawled into the room where he was held. Risking it all, the young boy had slipped him a Swiss Army knife and a copy of the surveillance tape. Jack had cut the restraints and a throat or two during his flight to freedom from the Centre again, but he had left Jarod behind. Jack had never forgiven himself for that. He pulled out the Swiss Army knife and set it down between them. It was a symbol of their liberation.

There was a prolonged silence. Jack reached out his one good hand to touch the red folders. Red folders and notebooks, flashes of memories and the soothing sound of Sydney's voice all tumbled back. He wanted to forget, had to forget again.

"How long are you in town and where are you staying?" Jack asked abruptly.

"A few days, but I subleased an apartment for two months. It throws them off the trail." Now it was Jarod who has a pissed yet anxious quality to his voice.

"Leave me the information. I need you to leave. . My team has a tendency to check up on my when I'm injured. I'll be in touch." Jack's smile was as much a wince too. Anytime now they could be pulling up in driveway. They did not need to meet his past. "Do you need anything?"

"No, not really." Jarod was standing up and heading for the door. Jack had risen also and was pulling out his wallet. He extracted a white and blue business card. He motioned towards the pen in Jarod's breast pocket. With it he wrote a number on the back of it.

"This phone number is a special number. It can reach me here, on my cell or at the base. There are only six people who have this number, five of them are here, and one is in a big white house in DC. Don't lose it, and only use it if you'll know you need to use it. Otherwise, use the regular cell number.

"Take care. Call me if you need to see me, or how can I reach you?"

Jarod pulled out a card and handed it Jack.

"Sweet," Jack laughed for the first time. The card read Jarod Anderson, PHD Professor of Middle Eastern Studies. "I'm doing a couple of lectures here at the Air Force Academy on the rise of terrorist activities since the 1970's. I have a beeper."

"Jarod, be careful." Jack had him at the door and opened it and looked around first before the young man was allowed to leave. "Car?"

"Parked two blocks away. I came through a couple of yards and streets to get here." Jarod reach out his hand to Jack. "Still an honor."

"Yeah, yeah, yada yada, take care of yourself " Jack was now in full dismissal mode. "I know what you are trying to do but I have my own way to do it. I'm the last person you need to use as a role model."

"On the contrary, Colonel O'Neill, you are the first, were the first." Jarod stepped out of the house and sauntered off whistling the Air Force theme.

Jack walked back into his dining room and picked up the folders with his good hand, he slipped the other arm out of the sling. The pain was ignored; he had worse this was only a minor annoyance. He took his beer into the living room and sat down the folders across his lap. The decision to read them had already been made. He opened the first one.

Two hours later he was through all the folders. Jarod was a very good Pretender. They had seasoned him well at the Centre. The idea that a boy was taken away from his family and raised in the cloister of the Centre, kept from normal interactions with children his own age and the love of a parent enraged and sickened him, and guilt swallowed him whole.

Once he had established himself, Jack realized that he should have gone back and made sure that they could never do to another as had been done to him. But he had taken the easy road, the road of denial in a concoction of drugs that made him forget the past. He remembered the whispering behind hands held to mouths about the poor boy that had to give him injections. Each one brought him closer to embracing only the identity he created, Jonathon Jarod O'Neill born in Chicago, raised in Minnesota.

The doorbell brought him out of his tortured memories. Knowing that it was probably one of his team, Jack stuck the folders in the hall table. Leaving them out or putting them away in front of his team would only entice Daniel to sneak covert peeks at them. He opened the door, startling Janet, but she gathered it back with one of her 100-watt smiles that filled up the space between them. Jack let it pour over him, it felt so good.

"Colonel, I see you're self medicating and not keeping the wrist elevated." The smile softened the reprimand.

"Caught me, come on in, Doc." Jack looked over her head and checked the perimeter for additional quests or spectators. He held the door as she stepped through.

"So how is the arm?" Janet asked as she stepped down into his living room. A glance up to the dinning room revealed a cup with a tea bag in it and two empty beers. Jack had had company, a twinge of jealousy twisted her stomach, but she denied it life. A large hand with long fingers touched her shoulder and encouraged her to turn around to face him. She did and found his mouth descending to hers. Jack's first kiss was slow and thoughtful. She wondered what Jack was up to as she crossed her legs trying to ignore the tingling that had started between her legs from his kisses but it only made it worse.

"What did Hammond say?" Jack's voice breaking the silence as he stepped into the room and sat down on the coffee table in front of her.

"He locked the file and disc in his private safe. He said that they'd never see the light of day unless you agree otherwise." Her brown eyes searched his face for a glimmer of the warm sexy man who had greeted her at the door. She found coldness and, for a brief flicker there was fear, but it dissolved with her answer.

"Jack do you want to ..." She stopped herself; Janet knew better Jack would only talk when he was ready to and that was usually never.

"Where's Cassie?" The abrupt topic change threw Janet.

"Spending the night with a friend."

"Then you don't have to rush off?"

There was an appeal for a positive answer in his near whispered question.

"No, I have the night free." Janet leaned forward; it was time to take the initiative, and she took his injured wrist in hers. Jack didn't wince as she checked the fingers for coldness; there was none, the circulation fine.

Jack's other hand came to side of her face. "Wrong, Doc. I think I have some plans for you." Behind his brown eyes smoldered passion and Janet could read it clearly as he took her by the hand and lead her up the stairs to his bedroom.

Jarod turned the key in the lock of his sublet apartment; in one arm he cradled a bag of groceries from the organic grocery store a block away. His mind was on the meeting. Meeting "John" or "John Doe #1 " as he was known in all the files, had not been all that he had expected; that was inaccurate - it was different than he had fantasized. John Doe #1 was a man, but to say just any man, average or normal, that was wrong. Using every trick he had learned at the Centre and those since his departure, he has still was only able to pull up the basic file on the man, the press release version from the Air Force.

Colonel Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill, Special Forces trained, first seeing action in the very last days of Viet Nam and his deployments included time in Desert Storm. His current assignment was with NORAD doing deep space radar telemetry research. So much of his career had been classified that there was barely more than a paragraph to read; however, there was a list of medals, citations and awards that were more than impressive - they were awe inspiring. It was obvious with his record that last thing he was doing was deep space radar telemetry research. There was also the brief mention of a marriage and family and the death of a child, a boy, Charles Richard O'Neill, "Charlie."

The darkness and ghosts in the brown eyes of John Doe #1 were not from the Centre. Although it had provided the haunted house, there had been other events that had conjured those specters. There was a blood blackness swirling in the chocolate eyes that spoke of extremes, abilities and emotions once unleashed or left to roam that even he Jarod could not pretend he could approximate or fathom. All of this held in check in the lean outer trappings of a simple soldier. He was inspired and frightened by the possibilities and determined to delve no deeper respectful of John's need to maintain the pretense of a life he had created.

"You know the little book store on the corner has much better coffee than that large chain. They grind it special for you and have some great blends." A friendly voice drifted over to Jarod as he got the key to open the lock.

Jarod had not noticed his neighbor, though he had observed him before. The thirty something man stood before his own front door dressed in tan Dockers, a black turtleneck, and a light jacket.

"Jackson, Daniel right?" He asked opening the door and stepping inside. "Please come in." Suddenly Jarod needed company after years of isolation. The need for companionship seemed to be a wound that would not heal.

"That would be nice, okay." The sandy haired man smiled and his blue eyes seemed to twinkle with honesty behind his glasses. "You here for long?"

"No, and it's Jarod Anderson, just subletting for a month or so. I am doing some lecturing at the College and the Academy. At least it's furnished. "Jarod liked the man already.

"Lecturing? Are you a professor of?" Daniel was now curious.

"Middle Eastern Studies. I'm doing series of lectures on the terrorism. Jarod began to unpack his groceries as Daniel looked around.

"Middle Eastern Studies, just modern or ancient?" Daniel looked at Jarod over his glasses before he scanned the apartment. The only thing different or out of place was a metal briefcase and a stack of newspaper clippings that were laid out on a desk with a red folder.

"Well, you need to know the history to understand how it affects the present. Any interest to you, Daniel?"

"Yes, actually, I'm an archeologist; Egyptology is one of my specialties." Daniel tried to make it sound like he was not bragging.

"So you are 'that' Dr. Daniel Jackson. I've read your work. Interesting theories. Are you here teaching or what?" Jarod was running mentally through all the material he had covered on this young professor.

"No, I am with NORAD, deep space radar telemetry, kind of a SETI thing. I'm also a linguist. It keeps a roof over my head." Daniel smiled secretly at his own lies.

Jarod had his back to Daniel at that moment. NORAD, deep space radar telemetry, an archeologist/linguist and John Doe #1, the Pretender of Pretenders and a highly decorated Special Ops operative, this was a mix that might bear looking into. Maybe, he would need to see Jack one more time.

"Does this little book store offer more than coffee?" Jarod turned on his charm.

"Well, they have some very nice organic sandwiches and dishes, health food stuff; I think it is to counter all the caffeine."

"Daniel, I really don't want to cook. Would you care to show me this book store? I would like to discuss some of your theories with you."

Daniel was charmed and it was not often he got to sit and drink too much coffee with a fellow academic, especially someone in his own field, sort of, close enough. There was also the idea of eating. He was not a gifted cook, and the MRE's they had eaten planet-side had not been very satisfying, the old taste like chicken, but it's really macaroni and cheese thing.

Jarod smiled a dark crooked smile, organic food, hot coffee and a subtle interrogation. This was going to be an interesting evening. He slipped a notebook into his inside jacket pocket before he closed the door.

Staring out the window looking at the gate, George Hammond was lost in thought. He turned his chair back to his desk and looked at the file in front of him. The images of the video playing back in his head.

"Damn it Jack." He mumbled and put the classified file back in his safe.

Jack lay asleep, peacefully, curled up in a half fetal position. Janet found she was able to extricate herself from the bed. She slipped on Jack's discarded shirt and made a quick trip to the bathroom. What she need now was a cigarette, filthy habit. She quit years ago, but on rare occasions she would have one. Once a smoker, always a smoker; just like an alcoholic - one drink too many, a hundred not enough. She might had quit smoking, but she was still a smoker. There was a stale pack of KOOL Milds in the bottom of her purse most of them crushed and broken, but she found there were a few still salvageable. The clock on the kitchen wall told her it was 0139 in the morning.

As she padded down the staircase to the dining room she bumped into the hall table. The drawer was slightly open and the corner of a red folder jutting out. Women are curious and Janet tried to just close the drawer but instead found herself opening. Four red notebooks, the handwriting not Jacks lay there waiting to be read. How could she even thing about invading his privacy like this? Janet knew how obsessive Jack was about his privacy. Intimacy did not always give one the combination to the safe. She took out the book of matches and forced herself to close the drawer properly.

Silently she opened the sliding glass door to his patio and lit the cigarette. Lost in her own thoughts she didn't hear him until he was behind her.

"I bring out all the bad habits in you, don't I?" Jack questioned, slipping one arm around her waist and taking the cigarette from her other hand. Instead of tossing it out, he took a deep drag. "Damn! Menthol," he gasped but took a second drag and blew out smoke rings. Both were ex-smokers who fell from the tobacco wagon occasionally.

"Jack, is that why you said before 'you've done the strapped down to a bed, drugged out thing'?" Janet took the smoke back from him and walked back towards his dinning room.

"Yes."

Janet knew she might have to drag the rest out of him. She headed to the kitchen for a drink. She already knew where the beer was but a shot of bourbon would be in better order. Sometimes intimacy granted the right to question. The bottle of Southern Comfort was there and she found two juice glasses.

Jack was dressed only in a pair of jeans, she knew with no boxers, sitting across his table in the moonlight waiting for her. The man was so astute he knew there was more than just a need for a cigarette involved in her nocturnal wanders.

She set a both glasses down in front of him and poured three fingers in each, neat, and waited.

"They had the wrong man, I don't know, didn't know who they were. The guy on the tape just kept at me in a soft kind of away, gentle and promising not to hurt me, scolding me like I was a little kid day after day. After about fifteen days, they decided that making me addicted to Dilaudid wasn't as efficient as they had thought. So they roughed me up, tenderized me so that I would have less resistant against the drugs. " Jack let the words just roll out. He cleansed his throat by empting the glass. He poured another one and offered the bottle to Janet.

"So now you know why I don't like needles." He gave her a bitter smile setting the filled glass down. He sat back in the chair arms crossed over his chest, his body language defiant.

"I had to ask. What they did to you..." Janet stammered and clutched her glass with both hands.

"Jan, I've had worse, well, that was the first time." Jack sipped on the bourbon relaxing, his arms wide and one leg folded across a knee.

"I had to ask." Janet's voice was tiny; it was not the doctor who spoke but the woman who cared.

"One more smoke and what say we get some sleep?" There was playfulness now.

Janet rose and sought out her purse. She brought the crumpled pack out from the depths of it and found another bent but not broken Jack lit it and pulled her down into his lap. Through the jeans she could that he was aroused.

"Sleep you say?" Came the giggle as draped her arms over his shoulders and now sat astride him.

His cell phone began to ring. It was next to his wallet on his table beside his bed.

The two looked at each other and sighed. His cell phone ringing this late at night only meant trouble. Both felt themselves slip into full alert mode. Jack mounted the stairs two at a time. Janet took them one at time but was only a second behind.

"O'Neill," He listened closely. "Daniel, what the hell are you saying?

You hurt? Hold on Danny." Jack snapped the phone shut. "Get your clothes on Daniels hurt." Jack reached into his bedside table and pulled out his .9mm and two extra clips. It didn't matter about appearance - one of their own was in trouble.

"My bag's in my car." Janet buttoned up her blouse and stepped into her pumps. Within five minutes they were in Jack's truck and backing out headed to Daniel's. Half way there Jack reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a .9mm and handed it to Janet. He didn't have to ask if she knew how to use it. He'd seen her in action before.

The drive was furious but not reckless. Jack was too experienced in both pursuit and evasive driving to be a danger to anyone. Besides it was after midnight and the city was settling down for the night. Jack gave her silent hand signals as they both crept up the three flights to Daniel's apartment. Finally reaching Daniel's door Jack tried it, found it ajar, and used his fingertips to push it fully open. Janet went low and he went high but only found Daniel collapsed on his side on the floor, his cell phone still clutched in his hand.

"Easy there, Daniel." Janet whispered soothingly as she checked the inert figure over. He'd been beaten, his right eye was swollen shut, his bottom lip was split, and he also had a large lump at the back of the head.

"Jack? Janet?" Daniel recognized the two semi- out- of- focus faces.

"Who did this to you, Daniel?" Jack's voice was harsh with urgency.

"Don't know, never saw their faces. My neighbor and I went out for coffee. They got him." Daniel was drifting. Janet pulled out her trusty pen light and checked his pupils. They were slightly sluggish.

"We've got to get him to the infirmary." Janet spoke over her shoulder to Jack who stood at the door as if on guard.

"They got him. Jarod." Daniel was persistent and agitated. "They said tell O'Neill, he'll understand and ...." Daniel pointed in the general direction of his living room.

Jack looked around and both he and Janet recognized what Daniel was pointing at a red folder on his coffee table. Clipped to it was a note in clear block printing.

**"Time to come home, John."**

Jack swallowed hard but it was his only outward reaction till he met Janet's gaze. She was looking at the red folders and back at him questions dancing in her brown eyes. His stomach turned to lead. Somehow Janet had grasped the importance of the folders, and she recognized the sentiment.

"We have to get him to the infirmary." Janet broke the glass of silence first.

Jack picked up the folder and helped Daniel up.

"I can do it. I can walk." Daniel grimaced and allowed Jack to help him out. Janet closed and locked the door. They took the elevator to the parking lot and laid Daniel in the back seat.

The red folder sat between the two of them in the front seat. Jack refused to make eye contact with her, but Janet knew she had just stumbled into one of Jack's secrets and she was not welcomed.

She'd watched them arrive; the silver haired man reeked of combat training, Special Forces, maybe, but more than a cop. Now they helped the sandy haired man out to the big green Ford truck, the guy that had been with Jarod at the coffee shop. From the looks of the man, he'd been worked over. She had arrived too late. Even in the dark, the red folder in the gray hair guy's hand was noticeable.

She was on her third cigarette and placed it between full deep red lipstick covered lips when her phone rang. She was following them outside of the city and up into the mountains.

"What!" She could hear Broots stammering in her ear. "Shut up." She snapped the phone closed and tossed it on the seat next to her. The green Ford truck continued on but had to stop, authorized personnel only. Before her, the road to Cheyenne Mountain and NORAD.

"What the hell is going on here?" She questioned watching the truck waved through the checkpoint.

From the seat next to her she could hear a voice repeating her name over and over again, "Ms. Parker."

She picked up the phone and held it to her ear. "For crying out loud, Broots, this had better be good." Miss Parker snapped venomously.

"I think they got Jarod." A very apologetic and scared male voice told her.

End Chapter one....


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two of The Centre of Lies **

While Hammond and Janet were bringing Teal'c up to speed without giving him too much detail, Jack was driving back to his home. He could feel the anger building up, the cold fusion of rage in his stomach. The knowledge that he there were three possible scenarios; one would have him dead, two would have him on the run as a Pretender leaving all he knew behind; three, and the one he wanted most, was the Centre would go down. He'd go back to the SGC with only a handful of questions and only Hammond and Janet knowing his history. Of course, all of this would be accomplished with freeing Jarod as the main goal.

Jack admitted he had been an ass to think they, the Centre, would not make a try at him again. Jarod had been a fool to try to find him. It had endangered both of them. The drugs, that wonderful cocktail he had created while at the Centre, had only worked on him for a time, but with the reinforcement of self-hypnosis, he had managed to keep it a foggy memory. The training he had received from early childhood had been the only reason he had managed to survive Iraq. How ironic and cruel that was.

And now there was Jarod to consider.

The boy had slipped him the Swiss Army knife and had cut the restraints. He had crawled out of there the same way he had ten years earlier. The first time he had been a scared socially deprived teenager; the second time, a junkie hours away from breaking down, giving in. This time he resolved if he could not walk out on his own power he was going out in a body bag.

He was in his driveway and out of the truck in one fluid motion. The .9mm was out and ready, his trigger finger just outside of the guard. The house was just as he left it. The bed would still be tousled from the lovemaking session, red folders on his dining room table. Jack turned the key with his weak hand and stepped into his own house with the stealth of thief. The smell of cigarette smoke lingered in the air, but it was fresh.

"Hey handsome, drop it." A firm female alto commented as a .9mm was pressed into this back.

Jack spun around and swung out with a flying kick that had the woman sprawled out. He was on top of her before she could moan.

"Sorry, beautiful, but this is my house," Jack tossed at her as he used his own body weight to hold her down. Whoever she was, she still had a firm grip on her handgun. He had no choice. The punch connected solidly with her chin and dazed her enough to get control of the weapon and drag her into the living room. Jack tossed her down on the couch. He sat opposite her in the side chair, his weapon pointed at her and the other hand turning on the light.

"Who are you and why did they send you?"

Miss. Parker began to gather her senses, pulled herself up into a sitting position. Her face buried in her hands, her chestnut hair covering her face.

"Punched a woman, no officer, and a gentleman?" She spat blood on his rug defiantly, "No way to treat a lady."

"Provide me a lady and we'll see." Jack cocked the automatic.

"Bastard."

"Could possibly be. Answer the question."

Miss Parker wanted to look into his face when she refused. She directed her eyes blue eyes on him.

Recognition hit Jack with the punch of magnum load. The face was Catherine's, the only person who treated him with any decency, even showed him caring. Catherine, who was pregnant, had let him feel the baby kick, who had let him hold the baby when he was just a child himself. It was impossible to not react, his eyebrows marched up his forehead, and his lips formed the name.

It was nearly the same for Miss Parker. The face she remembered, perhaps a little tighter, the hair most definitely brown and not the salt and pepper it was now, but it was him. The soldier Sydney and Raines had tortured for weeks. The one they said was John Doe #1, the man who had interjected his body between Raines and herself when the oxygen-deprived bastard had tried to slap her for being where she shouldn't. The same battered sick and bleeding captive who had looked at Raines and named him a dead man, the same one.

"I know you, I remember you." She felt the angry pushed to one side as confusion took center stage.

"Where is Jarod?" Jack demanded almost calling her Catherine.

"You are him, John Doe #1. They've had me so busy looking for Jarod that they forgot about you." the acid was again beginning to flow in Miss Parker's veins. "You're practically a myth."

"Where is Jarod?" Jack repeated.

"How in the hell do I know, I was following him myself. How did they get to you first?" She paused and began to fumble of her cigarettes.

"Ahh ahhh ahhh!! Hands."

"Smokes." She pulled out one and lit it. "The poor stupid sentimental ass led them right to you, didn't he?" She asked on the exhale. "He had to meet the legend." Miss Parker shook her head in annoyance.

"They hurt a friend of mine. He's going to be okay but that is not what pissed me off."

"Your cover is blown? How many years? Over 25 years? Now, I see why they want you back." Her voice was velvet, edged in steel and wrapped with a bow of sarcasm. "You made quite a life for yourself, Colonel Jonathon Jarod O'Neill, United States Air Force, once retired and highly decorated."

"I'm going to get Jarod out. You can help or I will arrange for you to be put in lock up till I'm successful. Your choice. Got a name?"

"Miss Parker."

"Fine, Miss Parker. Now answer my question."

"Why should I help? They got Jarod. My job is done?"

"They want us both. They won't let either of us go again. There will be no exchange. Your job will be over and your usefulness will come to an end. No more mice, no pussy cat needed." Jack enjoyed waking her up to reality. It didn't matter whose daughter she was. The Centre's retirement plan was probably a .22 caliber round behind the ear and being dumped in some field. The beautiful woman would just become a sad victim of an unknown murder. He'd run that scenario for them in the early sixties, when the Centre was trying to figure out how to mimic a serial killer like DeSalvo or Speck and use the heinous crimes as a cover up for the real one murders. All the scenarios coming back, all the insight into the enemy he possessed on covert missions, how it was so easy to pull the trigger for real, no longer a simulation.

"Daddy won't let that happen." Miss Parker spat under her breath though she felt the cold finger of doubt run up her back.

"No, daddy will not save you. Besides he isn't in as much control as he once was, is he?" Jack asked though he knew that this question was also an admission to the truth.

"You really are John Doe #1." Miss Parker tried to spin it back on him and blew smoke into his face contemptuously.

There was a knock on his front door saving him from any further admissions. Jack rose and moved to the door keeping his weapon pointed at her.

"Colonel?" The gentle voice of Janet Fraiser asked through the door. "It's me and Teal'c."

Without turning on the light Jack opened the door for them. "How did you two get here?"

"The General provided us with a Hummer. Dr. Fraiser drove us here. We are parked in the next street." Teal'c explained, now dressed in the black fatigues of a covert mission, a black watch cap pulled down over his gold tattoo. Jack noticed Janet was dressed the same. Both came in holding large gym bags.

"Hammond sent along some party favors." Janet was eyeing the very attractive and tall dark haired woman who was smoking in Jack's living room.

"T, you got a zat on you?" He asked. The Jaffa dug into the bag and brought one out. "Good. Shoot her once if she tries anything. She is just a little less difficult than one of our snake friends, so watch her close."

"Indeed." Teal'c stood in front of the woman, the Goa'uld weapon directed right at her. He was scowling enough to even intimidate the Centre's supreme tracker.

Janet and Jack wandered out of the room with Jack carrying the two bags to his kitchen table. Once inside of the kitchen Janet reached out and touched Jack hesitantly. He answered her by taking her into his arms.

"Doc, what I have to do you may not want to be a part of. It's going to get ugly."

"They have to be stopped." Janet rested her head against his chest. She was sending her man off to war that had no name, to resolve inhumane wrongs that had been perpetrated against Jack and this Jarod that he and Daniel had spoken of.

"Jack, I would tell you that you are not responsible for everyone, but I know better. You wouldn't be true to yourself. If you can save the world and the universe you can do this, no matter what it costs you." Janet sheathed her inner feelings and spoke the words against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

Her comment was why Jack had fallen in love with the petite physician. Janet understood and accepted him for all his secrets, scars, and failings.

Jack leaned down from his six foot two to her five foot two and kissed her full lips. He needed to know she was there for him and he could see in her eyes that she would no matter what he did. Janet was a healer, but she was more warrior that she knew, in another world she probably was a Valkryie. If she would carry him to Valhalla he would gladly go with her. Regrettably, she wasn't a Norse battle maiden and he was no great warrior like Baldr. He knew one thing; he wanted to live to be with Janet again.

Teal'c caught the embrace and kiss out of the corner of his eyes. In a time of great trouble it was good to know two people he respected and admired even loved were together.

Jack and Janet returned to the living room as the phone rang. Jack let the answering machine pick up.

"I know that you are there John. Please pick up the phone or put it on speaker. Your actions now will dictate what Jarod will have to endure until your arrival." The voice was almost hypnotic in its smoothness.

"Sydney." Jack thought. Yes, he knew the voice. He pressed the answering machine off and hit the speaker button.

"The name is O'Neill, and what do you want with me?"

"You can continue this pretense as along as you want John, but you and I know better. You need to come home. Jarod is waiting for you, as is another you may remember, Angelo."

Sydney might as well have kicked him in the heart, Angelo, oh g-d. Why bring up Angelo? Another one he had left behind. Angelo was special and he had left them in the hands of those bastards.

"You know the way home. Be there tomorrow morning, alone. We will know it we have very good Intel John; Miss Parker can track you through a hurricane once she is put on the scent. Her pursuit of you could make headlines. "

Miss Parker's head had snapped towards the phone when she heard her name mentioned. Jack looked at the phone strangely and then one corner of his mouth seemed to rise up. He knew something the others didn't. Jack had hope and he began to run new scenarios.

"I'll be there in four hours."

"It's only three hours by Gulf Stream. "The voice on the other of the phone chided.

"Can't get a plane that fast." Jack stalled.

"You are in the Air Force and you can not get a plane? Come now John, do not play me the fool."

"I'll be there in four." Jack clicked the phone off and turned back on the other three. "Miss Parker you take them to Delaware in your jet that is probably sitting at COS Airport, right?"

Miss Parker looked away and lit another cigarette.

"My friend, T here, is a very big, lonely, man. He likes to hurt people who hurt his friends. Daniel was hurt when you people nabbed Jarod. See how pissed off he is!" Jack motioned to T who only raised an eyebrow. "Vicious, cold blooded. And don't let her size bother you; Doc here knows how to deliver pain." He finished off pointing at Janet.

"Why should I help you?"

"Because, Miss Parker, you know it's over. Time to jump ship and earn some brownie points." Jack was smiling and winked to Janet. Besides, there was one thing that Sydney wasn't aware of- Miss Parker was in his living room and considering that working for Daddy might have been a serious vocational error.

Jarod felt the cold concrete against his face. He was in a cell, one of many in the Centre. He had to be in the Centre; he could smell it, almost taste it, like how salmon knew the way home tasting it in the water the spawning ground/home had a taste/scent that was recognized. Hope disappeared from his heart. Despair kept his eyes closed so he did not have to recognize his prison.

"Jarod, you will not be able to move. You have been given drugs to cause paralysis; struggling will only hurt you further," the voice said softly, a friendly voice, the voice of his childhood. "Mr. Lyle decided it was the best way to control you.

"Sydney." Jarod gasped, the more he became aware the more the pain began to return.

"I will give you something for pain. You are hurt badly. My. Lyle was not gentle with you." Sydney rested a hand on Jarod's bare shoulder. Jarod felt the sting of a hypodermic needle. "You have been beaten and may have internal injures but I am not permitted to provided you with medical attention, yet." Sydney's voice was a whisper.

"No treatment because we want John Doe #1 to see what he is responsible for." The new voice was that of Mr. Lyle. Jarod flinched involuntarily at the unwelcome sound of it. The drugs were making him groggy again. He didn't hear himself groan in pain as Lyle had his thugs toss him onto a bed. He was strapped down.

Sydney watched. His face was an unmoving mask yet inside he was screaming. He'd seen and caused too much pain. Forty years was enough. His only hope, and Jarod's, the one man who probably hated him the most, John Doe #1.

Mr. Lyle was waiting for Sydney as he stepped out of the cell.

"Nice touch, don't you think? Got Jarod staked out in the same cell we had John Doe 1 in that time you caught him before in the 80's. I think JD1 will find that amusing. This time we have a special room for him." Lyle was arrogant and condescending and was speaking of the room adjacent to Jarod's cell. He was having it specially prepared for JD1. The monitors were already hooked up so JD1 could watch every thing happening in Jarod's cell as well as Jarod would have the ability to see JD1.

"You better take some serious precautions, Mr. Lyle. John Doe #1 is not the same young man who we had almost twenty years ago or even when he was first brought here. Angelo has looked up his record; he is with the Air Force Special Forces and is high decorated for his bravery." Sydney warned.

"JD1 is a product of the Centre and you, Sydney. He is too moralist and compassionate. Besides, he's old. " Lyle sauntered off.

Sydney smiled. Lyle was an arrogant ass, and he was underestimating John. That was the biggest mistake of Lyle's life and perhaps the last. He glanced at his watch; John should be touching down within the next hour. He had much to do before that encounter.

"Sir, we just got a call from Peterson. Colonel O'Neill just took off in a T-38, and he's filed a flight plan to Washington D.C. He requested mid-air refueling." Gate Tech Davis announced to Hammond who had yet to leave the mountain. "I didn't know that the Colonel was a pilot."

"He's flying to the Pentagon on an urgent matter." Hammond invented a cover story instantaneously. "Does it really surprise you?" He added with a bite of sarcasm.

"No, no, it doesn't." Walter continued to nod his head as he turned and left the General alone.

What the hell was Jack up to? And flying? He knew the man could, or thought he could, do everything but Jack did not have a set of wings to affix to his uniform. But knowing the circumstances, there had to be a reason to it all. A T-38 could carry two so he hoped that Jack had Teal'c with him. The continued images from the DVD haunted him, but only because of other memories.

Hammond remembered a smart-ass officer with gray hair and three other companions from 1969 who were thought spies and he had helped escape. Then a few short years later, the younger version of that officer he had found nearly half dead. All this only to meet him again in 1997 when the Stargate was reopened from the wrong side. His life had been intertwined with the three of the members of SG1 for thirty years and he had not been able to tell anyone, for fear of changing even one thing, the Grandfather paradox Major Carter had explained to him, something he already knew.

He knew Jack was going back to this Centre or where ever those brigands were sending him. His Second in Command was going to do whatever it took to free the young man that had suffered a similar life that Jack had escaped from. He was not going to sit back and be idle. There was something he had to do; this time he would intervene. He just had to figure out how to arrange it. George Hammond began running through a mental checklist of every one who owed him a favor. Markers were going to be called in.

Jack massaged the control stick with familiarity. No pilot's wings officially, but both his "Pretender" abilities and Special Ops training allowed Jack to be able to pilot any thing up to a 747. Granted, he had not had much experience, but the T-38A Talon was like a long lost buddy. Alone at thirty thousand feet flying into a rising sun brought him a few moments of serenity. He was no one to everyone here, just him, who ever he was; all the layers, identities, facets of no concern to G-d, machine and man at just a tick under mach one.

He needed this time to consolidate his plans, run his scenarios, come up with contingencies; there was always a Plan B. But within him, he didn't figure it that way. Jack had no qualms about giving up his own life, though he would rather others did first. It was just time he did something about the guilt he had been carrying for nearly twenty years. He had left Jarod and Angelo behind though he had not know that the just before his escape two new boys had been taken. This would be the Alpha class after all the kinks had been worked out through him.

What had the Centre learned? Those beatings were not the way to get one of their Pretenders to willingly, if not eagerly, run one of their scenarios for them. It was hard to give one hundred percent when you had been beaten or in the early days been spanked like an unruly child.

Jack wondered why he had not, after all these years, come to hate Sydney with any great intensity. Sydney had been his teacher, the closest thing to a parent that he had known for his ten years at the Centre, and though he had been firm, he had never outwardly intentionally been cruel. Sydney had used physiology to secure his results, and that was more insidious.

And then there was the memories of Catherine Parker, the face identical to the woman who had broke into his home, her daughter. Catherine had always been kind to him, when they had let her. She had kept him from going mad, or at least not completely bat shit psycho. Somewhere in Miss Parker's heart, Jack prayed there was a modicum of the same humanity as possessed by her mother. It appeared, however, she had become her father's daughter, too bad because, if he ran into Mr. Parker, Miss Parker was going to be an orphan.

Jack had made a promise to himself when he still had two silver bars on his shoulder that if the chance ever arose, he would no longer deny what the Centre had perpetrated. This was going to be vengeance for more than himself, but for Jarod, Angelo, Catherine and her ice queen daughter.

A quick glance at his watch and he realized he was coming up the first of two mid air refueling. Jack was now just two thousand miles away from a return to the nightmare that had been his childhood.

It actually didn't take a lot of persuasion for Teal'c and Janet to convince Miss Parker to take them to her plane. She had foolishly tried to break from Teal'c supervision and was rewarded with one zat blast.

"Kind of makes a Tazer feel like a dead battery doesn't it?" Janet asked rhetorically as she helped the young woman up. "One more shot in quick succession kills."

"Who are you people?" The recovering Miss Parker snapped.

"We are people that it would be wise not to anger. You will now take us to your aircraft." Teal'c stood smugly with the Zat still extended at the cigarette smoking human.

She made her phone call to Broots and the cuckold responded to her every command, to get the plane ready, and alert the staff, she was coming home. Broots also confirmed the worse; Jarod had been captured and was now locked in a cell, trussed up as helpless bait.

"Is it true Miss Parker, there really was, I mean is a John Doe #1?" Broots had sputtered his question.

"Yes, you idiot there is and he's pissed," was her response.

While Miss Parker was making her phone call, Janet was reporting to Hammond over Jack's cell phone.

Miss Parker had become aware that the resources of the Centre were not prepared for what she was now facing. John Doe #1 had walked out of legend and become real in her reality, now in the guise of an Air Force Colonel with very strange friends. The tall body builder black guy was not from anywhere she could figure out. The weapon was something that Raines would give one of his shriveled testicles for and Lyle would use without compunction. The woman had military training but was a physician and so had the fault of compassion.

She fought to keep her thoughts from landing on Jarod. Their lives so twisted together from earliest childhood, almost playmates to adversaries, to hunter and prey. Yet, there was one facet of their relationship that she denied; her affection which she found was an affliction for Jarod. Was it love? She didn't know. Love did not have the same hearts and flowers and warm fuzzy feeling to her as it did to most people. The love of her mother, and when that was taken away had perverted her emotional images. Maybe that explained why when she finally caught Jarod, she had always secretly desired to keep him for herself. But she realized she would just as readily hand him over to Daddy to secure herself some morsel of his love and approval.

The fractured memories of John Doe #1 were piercing her gelid constitution. He had taken the blows rather than have her receive them, compassion she had seen into his eyes. As a child, she had been frightened by the darkness behind the soft chocolate eyes so much like a faithful hound. She had seen the eyes of one capable of killing. As an adult, she recognized it again polished with practice in his eyes. It even gave her pause.

She directed the woman JD1 had referred to as Doc towards the private hanger where her jet was waiting. They were aboard and airborne and were only a precious two hours behind JD1.

Jack's flight plan had him heading to D.C. and Andrews Air Force base. At the last moment he turned off his transponder and made the turn north towards Delaware and the Centre. He couldn't deny that his heart was beating a bit faster and there was a cold trickle of sweat rolling down his spine even in the confines of his flight suit. He dropped his altitude a bit at a time till he was flying low enough to be off radar. The hunt for his missing plane would begin in earnest soon; some busy traffic controller would notice his absence. Part one of his scenario had just gone into play.

They had taught him well and the Air Force had honed his skills beyond even the Centre's expectations. The attack on Jarod had awakened a sleep dog of war.

Jarod was fighting against the sedative effect of the drug. He had to play out the scenarios in his head. What was John going to do? How would he approach, walk in and hand himself over? Storm the Centre with a crack Special Ops team, a surgical insertion? Or order a full-scale attack? The drugs fogged his mind, but he clung instinctively to one course of action. John was coming in alone and he was walking into hell, Raines and Lyle would never let him leave again. They would see to it even if they had to cripple John or worse. The two were not good losers.

"Jarod, John should be here soon. He's coming to rescue you. Now how would he go about that?" The voice as always was soothing and persuasive and Sydney's.

"Guns blazing," Jarod chuckled weakly letting the drugs carry him into darkness. Better to be unconscious and not able to provide information, than awake and waiting for his theory to play out.

Sydney let him slip away. He had seen to it. The dosage higher than Lyle had ordered. Jarod could sleep and not feel the guilt that would consume him when John was brought in. It was better that it only be one of them. Unconsciously, he patted his inside jacket pocket. The envelope was there, and after nearly four decades, its contents would see the light of day.

Miss Parker's pilot only nodded and went back to the cockpit when she arrived with her two new companions. The cockpit door was closed and she flopped down in one of the leather-upholstered seats. The bar was open as far as she was concerned and she poured herself a stiff three fingers of Scotch neat.

"I don't expect you want a drink?" She asked sarcastically of the one addressed as T.

"I do not consume alcohol." Teal'c answered flatly sitting across from her.

"Well, too bad. We don't need a designated driver." Miss Parker lit up another cigarette and noticed how T reacted to the smoke. This was her playground now, her home field advantage and she planned on being a total pain in their collective asses as long as they invaded it.

"So, how long have you not known about this Jack person being who you didn't know he was?" Miss Parker turned her Janet, the cynicism of her remark grating on Janet's raw nerves.

"Colonel O'Neill is well known to me." The tone in Janet's voice a subtle acceptance of any challenge that the chain smoking bimbo had in mind.

"Do you even have an iota of a concept of what a "Pretender" is?" Miss Parker leaned back in her seat as the plane accelerated down the runway. Her glare was laser sharp and drilled into Janet.

"I don't care what a "Pretender" is. I know who and what kind of man the Colonel is. That is all that matters. "

"O'Neill is a warrior of great bravery and integrity. It is an honor to fight and serve at his side." Teal'c, who had been silent, thundered. He would not allow Jack to be disrespected by a female such as this dark haired woman.

"Well, your Colonel is a Pretender. The first one it seems. Pretender's have genius IQ's and can adapt themselves to any situation. They can put up a facade of what ever they need to be. They are chameleons."

Janet began to protest but halted herself there was no reason to begin an argument with this creature. She would not lower herself.

"He's only as good as his scenario; he's just played this one out too long." Parker continued to needle. "When he gets back to the Centre, they will never let him leave again. He's dead to you. They'll kill him rather than see him free again."

"I believe you are mistaken. O'Neill has faced greater foes than these you speak of. He will be victorious. It is your life that now hangs in a balance, for if you commit any acts that would endanger his life, yours is forfeit." Teal'c let his voice drop to a growl.

Janet refused to take the bait but in her heart, she panicked. It registered on her face for just a second but long enough for one woman to read another's face.

"Your lover will never be free again." The comment was accompanied by a vicious smile.

There was the distinct possibility that Miss Parker was right and Janet was unable to deny it. Jack was a prisoner of many ugly memories; a dead son, four months in Iraq, the damage that the Centre did to him. While all of these episodes had formed the man she knew, did she really know him? Or was he just pretending?

The next three hours were spent in silence as the Gulf Stream continued on its flight plan back to the Centre's private airstrip. In the cockpit, the pilot glanced over at the man in the co-pilot's seat. He was a stranger with a .45 caliber Colt pointing at him. They'd been hijacked and he could tell no one.

The landing was textbook, the runway private and Jack was back. The granite and steel building that had been a home for ten years was prominent. He climbed out of the cockpit and found he had a welcoming committee. One he recognized; the other looked at him with an arrogance that needed to be wiped from the face with hatchet. Raines and Lyle had come to meet him personally.

"Welcome home, John." Raines spoke with a thin oxygen starved voice. The pack of portable oxygen at his side and the canulus feeding its life sustaining gas into him.

"Mr. Raines." Jack acknowledged and stopped twenty-five feet away from them as he nonchalantly tossed his heavy flight gloves into his helmet. The Zat was there too. "And you must be Lyle?" Jack was continuing to fumble with the helmet trying to get the Zat in place.

"That's correct, JD1." Lyle smiled and before Jack could react, Lyle waved a single finger in the air.

The high velocity rifle round tore into Jack's upper thigh. He crumbled to the ground. He hadn't seen that one coming. The next round was not a bullet but a tranquilizer type dart. It hit Jack square in the shoulder injecting its contents into him before he could pull it out. There was a sickening second of clarity as Jack recognized the injected drug, his old friend, his old enemy Dilaudid. They meant to make him a junkie again.

"What are you doing?" A new voice yelled as Jack felt the full effects of the drug. Sydney. His mind connected somehow through the haze.

"Do you really think we lured him back here to keep him alive?" Raines gasped.

"He's only good to us as a tool to get Jarod to behave. I am going to kill him slowly. JD1, you are an embarrassment to the Centre and for that you get to pay with your life." Mister Lyle knelt next to Jack, who lay writhing in the combined throes of pain and drug euphoria. As Lyle stood up, he kicked Jack viciously in the ribs and then once in the face. Even through the miasma of the narcotic, Jack felt the pain and blacked out

End part two


	3. Chapter Three of The Centre of Lies

**Chapter Three The Centre of Lies **

Daniel woke up in the infirmary. Seemed this was beginning to be a habit. The bed was comfortable against his bruised body and he snuggled down before he remembered what had brought him there. Jarod, his new neighbor, had been attacked; well, both of them had. He remembered names: Lyle, Centre, Raines, and Sydney. They had thought he was unconscious as well. He should have been.

"Why was all this directed towards Jack?" He wondered out loud, which brought him the attention of a nurse. Daniel recognized her as Denise Kenny. "Hey, Denise I need to talk to Jack, ah, Colonel O'Neill."

"Sorry, Dr. Jackson. We have strict orders to keep you in bed. Besides, I heard that the Colonel has flown to the Pentagon." Denise checked on the I.V. lines and brushed a stray lock of hair out of Daniel's eyes. She really liked his blue eyes.

"How about Janet?" Daniel asked, Denise shook her head, "Teal'c?" Another shake of the head.

"I have been ordered to keep you quiet." Denise fluffed his pillow.

"I got to get a message to Sam." Daniel tried to sit up but pain pinned him back to the bed. Sam was in San Diego with her father at her brother's home. She had left shortly after they had come back from their last mission, what was about twenty-four hours ago.

"Doing better, Dr. Jackson?" Dr. Warner asked checked the chart that Denise handed him, wrote in, and handed back to him. "You need to sleep now, Dr. Jackson. You took a pretty mean beating." With that Warner administered another dose of Demerol.

Daniel sputtered a protest but the drug lifted him and carried him back into sleep.

Jarod woke to find he was now secured in a chair. His first vision was that of himself in the large plasma screen TV that was installed on the wall opposite him. He found the camera in the corner of wall just below the ceiling. Suddenly the picture changed and he was now seeing an empty room identical to his. Instead of a chair, there was a medical bed with restraints.

The door opened inward and Jarod watched Lyle and Raines enter the room. Lyle smiled directly into the camera then turned his attention back to the doorway. A limp figure between two of Lyle's stooges was secured on the bed.

"John!" Jarod let the one work anguished cry escape his lips. John Doe #1 was laid out, blood pouring from nostrils, his eyes already discoloring, and the result of a broken nose. He was wearing a flight suit and the material of the left leg was black with fresh blood.

Another figure entered the room. Sydney looked in the camera fully cognizant that Jarod was seeing all of this playing out on the TV screen. There was a look of guilt in Sydney's eyes, but just for a flash.

"If you want to be able to get any information from him, Mr. Lyle, you will need to insure he lives long enough to answer your questions." Sydney was looking at the leg wound. "This needs medical attention. John could bleed to death."

"Do what you have to, Sydney; keep him alive, for now." Raines croaked out in his strained voice. "Keep him pumped up with the drug. I want him to remember who controls him." The bald headed man left wheeling his oxygen with him, yet no one could doubt the pure evil that emanated from the man.

Mister Lyle pulled out a silver case and slapped it against Sydney's chest. "One injection every four hours, to keep our long lost sheep docile." Lyle's gaze penetrated to Sydney's soul. He flicked a look at the four cameras in the room. "I'll know, and here are a list of questions I want you to get the answers for." Lyle slapped a white envelope into Sydney's hand.

Left physically alone with Jack, Sydney did what he could to staunch the blood. He would have to come back with a better medical kit. A hand wrapped around his wrist and squeezed.

"Don't do this, Sydney." Jack whispered. "Jarod, get him out. I don't matter...." Jack swallowed his own blood and gagged but was unable to move.

"Forgive me, John." Sydney opened the small silver box and pulled out a pre-filled syringe.

Jarod watch the needle disappear but the spasm of John's body told him the injections had been given. Jack/John thrashed about for a few moments but then he relaxed. Sydney backed away and one of the four views, a close up of Jack's face revealed the laxity and how his pupils had dilated to nearly eclipse he brown irises. John Doe was stoned.

The door to his cell opened and Mister Lyle entered. Sydney was a step behind.

"Thank you for leading us to John Doe #1, Jarod. We had lost track of him. Besides, he did actually convince me he was this O'Neill; well, at least my gullible predecessors. I would not have made the mistake of letting him leave alive." Lyle's voice was oily with his own smugness. "I would have sent a Sweeper team to eliminate him. But you had to find him, show him you had gotten away, too, and you were out traipsing around the country being the little hero. "

"There were other things to consider." Sydney added looking directly at Jarod.

"Well, yes, there was that. Why go after damaged goods when you had a new Golden child, right Sydney." Lyle taunted.

"What do you mean "damaged goods?" Jarod was focusing, using the pain from his prior beating to clear his mind.

"Your hero, this role model, he's the damaged goods. He has deluded himself into thinking he is better than we made him. He thinks that he is a real person one who can function in the real world. Don't you get it? Don't you understand why he enlisted into the military? It was because he couldn't make decisions for himself. He needed the structure of the military to run his life. The Air Force was just a diluted version of what he had been raised into." A sardonic laugh punctuated the explanation from Lyle as he pulled out a remote control from his pocket and pointed it at the TV. One of the four images filled the screen, Jack's head lolled to one side; his mouth open, the drugged stupor was painfully obvious.

"He liked- no, correction loved - the Dilaudid. You know what that is? It's artificial heroin. JD1 is a junkie. He'll be begging us again for a fix, lying in there in his own waste, begging us." Lyle continued. "And this formula is very addictive."

"You have me, why are you doing this to John?" Jarod demanded in a low threatening way.

"He's here to remind you not to escape again. Stay with John, and we'll keep him, alive. Or if necessary give him a painless death."

Jarod could see through the lie. There was no intention of keeping the Colonel, John Doe 1, alive for any length of time. Jack was already as good as dead and it was his fault. The guilt was gnawing away at him but his mind was running scenarios, ways to free JD1. He owed him that much.

The Centre's Gulf Stream landed at the private airstrip. There was no greeting party waiting them but the T-37A was still on the tarmac. Before they got off the plane, the realization hit Janet. They were without a plan. If Jack, the Colonel, had been here, he would be leading them. She had the rudimentary training but she was a healer. Janet looked to Teal'c for guidance. The Jaffa raised an eyebrow and inclined his head towards her.

Miss Parker looked from one to the other of her captors. "Amateurs." She spat out and dug for another cigarette. "Are you two even capable of doing something like this? You don't have a plan to get your Pretender out? "

The cockpit door opened and all looked up to see a rather distressed pilot with his hands in the air. Behind him was another figure, the polished nickel of the automatic glinting in the cabin lightening.

"They may not, but I do." Said the soft yet stentorian voice.

Both of Teal'c eyebrows shot upwards but there was an amused smile to his full lips. Janet, on the other hand, sighed in great relief as she recognized the voice and the face.

Pain roused him. It was the beginning of nausea, the feel of ants crawling over his body, the need, the hunger for the drug, the physical need. Jack's mind struggled with his body's desires. He was weak, his leg felt like it was on fire, and the headache from the broken nose was blinding. All of this was secondary to the knowledge that he was back at the Centre. Full circle directly into horror, a horror he was not sure he could endure.

The Goa'uld were a tangible enemy; obvious, clearly defined evil with a distinct agenda. The plans to fight them were unusually easy - pull out the P-90, grenades or C4, blow them up, kill them, eliminate them; no negotiations. The Centre was different; the agenda to sell the results of scenarios to the highest bidders was based on the thought processes of Pretenders and didn't have any other agenda than making money. No world domination or power, at least not at first. Jack had always suspected that the Centre, like Rasputin, had longed to be the shadowing figure behind the powers.

Why would they want him now? Jack listed the reasons: 1, to keep Jarod in line, 2. to teach him a lesson, 3. to restore their tarnished track record by recovering their first experiment. 4. And perhaps to utilize the knowledge that he had acquired living in the real world. All were plausible but there was one more possibility: 5. to destroy the evidence. Jack figured Mister Raines had every intention of acting on at least four of the five. Mr. Lyle, on the other, wanted to act only on number 5.

A wave of nausea seared his stomach, followed by a chill and the knowledge that he was probably starting to sweat.

"You should have never come back, John," the soft timid voice drifted to him. Jack opened his eyes and blinked back the painful brightness of the room. They had remembered; he had been light sensitive even as a child. There was a shape just outside of the light. It approached and there was no mistaking the wild red hair.

"Angelo." Jack gasped; it was truly old home week.

"You, you shouldn't have come back, John. You were free..." Angelo shuffled over beside him and crouched down next to him staring into Jack's face studying it. "You got old."

Jack laughed but his ribs protested and his laugh turned to a spasm of pain and coughs which only created more pain. "Don't make me laugh, Angelo, please."

"You do remember me?" Angelo was surprised withdrew afraid to say anymore not wanting to hurt Jack any further.

"Angelo, listen to me. You have to get Jarod out of here." Jack was doing his best to hold on. A spasm of pain hit him and he strained against the restraints, his left wrist suffering the most, but he channeled the pain into a way to focus. "Get him out. Others may be coming. Get Jarod to them."

"What about you John?" Angelo was now leaning over him inspecting the leg wound. While he had been unconscious someone had done a quick patch job but there was still a bullet lodged somewhere in the quadriceps.

"Angelo, I don't matter. Jarod does. He still has a chance for life." Jack coughed up the blood from his broken nose that was draining into his throat. "You go with them, Angelo, never come back."

"I have to get you out too." Angelo touched Jack's face. "They're going to hurt you more, like before." Angelo was getting agitated.

"Angelo, get Jarod out and yourself and if there is anyone else? Is there? Any others new like Jarod?"

"No, have to get you out, too, John." Angelo was pacing the room but suddenly froze, the sound of footsteps in the hallway coming closer.

"Angelo, please forget me. Get Jarod; get out of here, " Jack snapped as the addicts need punished him for more drugs with pain.

"No one gets left behind." He said in a clear and calm voice. Angelo seemed to melt back into the shadows just as the door opened.

"Awake already, John?' Sydney asked the small silver case in his hand. As he approached Jack, he looked up at the cameras. The red lights were on, all four were active. He took out one of the syringes and leaned down over Jack.

"This can't continue," Sydney whispered. "Can you make it with out the drug?"

Jack was surprised, relieved, and hopeful. Sydney had finally come to his senses or it was a duplicity he was about to fall for? His answer to Sydney was a brushing of his fingers against the man's hand. Sydney made to give Jack the shot slapping a vein but pushed out the contents into the material of the flight suit.

"Why?" Jack croaked out in pain, but it was pain that he had begun to control. He used the spasm from withdrawal to make it appear it was from the drug hitting his system again.

"We need you to admit who you are, if only to yourself, John. Tell me what have you been doing with yourself these last twenty years?"

"Killing sons of bitches like you." The answer sarcastic, Jack tried to laugh to add to the illusion but it was weak. "I'm going to kill all of you... just like those snaky bastards...I promise you I am going to kill you."

"That is very nice, John, but I don't think so. You remember this part, don't you? The delicious high of the drug coursing through your veins again, stopping the pain, the hunger. Remember, we who you are threatening to kill are your only family, and we control the drug."

"Not this time, Sydney." Lyle announced as he entered the room. He took the silver case from his hands. "I told you I would be watching." Lyle drew out another syringe and this one he jammed into Jack's arm. Jack convulsed.

"You'll kill him with an overdose!" Sydney tried to stop him but Lyle backhanded him. "Stupid old man," and slapped the case back into Sydney's chest. "Next time do it or suffer the same fate. Your usefulness here is coming to an end. "

Sydney waited till Lyle left the room before he wiped the blood from him mouth with a white handkerchief. The subject on the bed was convulsing, John Doe 1 was fighting a losing battle against the drug. He stepped over to the bed and looked into the brown eyes that still had a hint of forgiveness in them for him. He left Jack alone and succumbing.

"No one gets left behind, Angelo; him, too." Jack said out loud as he felt himself being washed over with the narcotic effects. One of his last lucid thoughts was a hope that Angelo had heard him.

Angelo's next stop was in Jarod's cell. He stood looking at Jarod and then the TV screen which showed John Doe. He stood next to Jarod and waited till the young man opened his eyes.

"John is back."

"I know, Angelo." Jarod didn't even ask Angelo to undo his restraints; there was no need to involve him.

"No one gets left behind." Angelo whispered as he patted Jarod's right hand. In the same motion he slipped a small penknife to Jarod. In a flash to twenty years ago when he had done the same for John. He started work on the first restraint.

There was high and being stoned. Jack was a little of both. He did not anticipate his next visitor. Miss Parker sauntered into the room, cigarette in her mouth and air of superiority.

"Not so brave now, are you, fly boy?" She demanded as she leaned down and yelled into his ear. Jack jerked in pain at the intense sound.

"Not the way to get brownie points." Jack snorted through the pain.

"Just admit it to us now, handsome, that you are John Doe and this can all go away." Miss Parker lowered her voice to a sultry alto.

"Get them out, Miss Parker, all of them; Jarod, Angelo, even Sydney because I am taking this place down." Jack whispered to her, turning his head to face her.

Miss Parker smiled and made it appear that she was giving him a kiss on the cheek. "How's this for brownie points - the three stooges are already here, with some stupid rescue plan for you." To camouflage her action she reached down with one hand and pressed on the bullet wound. Jack screamed in agony; however, his hand closed around the knife that Miss Parker slipped him and the assault on his leg a painful misdirection.

"This is what you were worried about?" Miss Parker questioned with disgust as she turned to the door where Raines and Lyle stood. She walked passed with a look of total distain.

"Handle her. Her usefulness is over," Raines commented to Lyle.

"It will be a pleasure. "

Broots was looking into the business end of a Zat; a desk chair had already been disintegrated as an example and he was willingly cooperating.

"Burn to disk everything that you can about the operation of The Centre, " Janet told him as she began to go through cabinets, looking for files or what she didn't know but would recognize when she laid her hands on it.

Broots continued to shake like a nervous lap dog when Angelo and Miss Parker entered the room. Miss Parker looked at Broots with an ugly disappointed look.

"Not those, you ass, these." She began to load blank disks into the computer and was highlighting the files to down load. "All of these." She directed continuing to point directories. "The last cabinet - only the files labeled in red." She tossed the direction over her shoulder.

"I'll show you." Sydney said as he and Angelo entered the room. "Miss Parker?"

"This is the end game, Sydney." She answered not wanting to face him.

"We are doing the right thing." Sydney informed her.

"Yes, well, I am not used to that, so you better just...."

"I believe the term is less talk more action." Teal'c announced turning all eyes to him. Janet snickered.

"Angelo, get something for us to carry this stuff out with." Sydney requested in a gentle guiding voice. Angelo nodded and scurried off.

"And you must be John's friends." He finally acknowledged Janet and Teal'c, "interesting."

"You have no idea..." Miss Parker quipped as she continued to copy files.

Jarod had made it through the restraint and now had his hand free. The other three were quick to undo. While his body ached he had to get John out. The door was not even locked; they had been that arrogant to think that watching them torture John would prevent him from taking any action if he had the chance. He was in Jack's cell a moment later.

Jack had nearly finished cutting through the thick leather when another figure entered his room. Silhouetted by the bright lights and fuzzy from the drugs Jack was ready to ram the knife into any part of the intruder's body.

"John, its Jarod." Jarod announced barely above a whisper.

"Get out of here before they catch you."

"Don't think so." Jarod was manipulating the restraints off and was pulling Jack upright. He held the battered Colonel as Jack heaved on the floor. "Better?"

"Been worse," Jack threw an arm around Jarod and prayed they would make it out. They had made it down one corridor when it happened. Sometimes drugs don't always dull the senses, sometimes they heighten them. Jack heard the slide on an automatic being pulled back and the hammer cocked. He instinctively pushed Jarod to the ground, spun, taking the weight on his good leg, and launched himself.

Mister Raines had indeed under estimated Jack. Jack had him disarmed and in a headlock, the automatic was now pressed against the bald man's temple. The instincts, training and years of torment erupted in a savage cry as Jack pulled the trigger. Raines head exploded. "For Catherine." The words were on his lips as Raines died.

There was no time to react as another shot was heard. The bullet pierced the now dead Mister Raines and buried itself into Jack's left arm. Jack looked into the eyes of Mister Lyle who now was opposite him, the Glock still smoking.

"Good bye, JD1." Lyle smiled and his finger began to tighten on the trigger. He jerked twice convulsively and then looked down at his chest His crisp white shirt was covered in blood. Raines fell to his knees and then onto his face dead before he hit the floor.

Jack let the inert body of Raines slide out of his arms as Jarod rushed to his side. They both turned and looked behind them; another figure came out of the shadows.

"The United States Air Force is not quite done with you yet Jack." The figure took a step out of the shadow and smiled.

Jack looked into the eyes of his Commanding officer, General George Hammond. The warm blue of the Texan's eyes were thawing but he had seen the icy detachment in those eyes, the look he knew. There was a gelid flatness of those capable of cold-blooded murder, those able to perform the deed and allow another chunk of their souls to be lost.

"General." Jack smiled and felt his knees give way and darkness descend over him. Jack fell into Hammond's arms.

"I got you now, son." Hammond commented as he strained with the surprising weight of his lanky 2IC.

Jarod had been witness to the looks in both men's eyes. He had not anticipated it; he could not relate to it. He could do many things, but there was no pretending in the eyes of the two men. They were warriors, and that he could never achieve or wished to emulate.

"We have to go now." Hammond directed as he slipped under Jack's arms and pulled him upright. Jarod took the other side. The welcoming committee outside the Centre was an Air Force Special Ops team, a favor called in.

"Two dead unfriendlies inside, clear the building of all others. Eliminate with prejudice if you meet with resistance." Hammond gave the command.

Jack snorted weakly. How many times had he followed those orders, given those same orders? His drugged mind suddenly landed on another matter. "My plane, sir, can't leave it here."

"We'll get it back for you, son." Hammond had already made arrangements for its return to Peterson.

Jack was losing all threads of consciousness and didn't recognize the Major who headed up the team. Raymond Bellano, who had been a second Lieutenant in Desert Storm, and who had been the FNG replacement on the mission that stole four months of Jack's life. Fking New Guy

"This one's for you and Cromwell," the Major muttered under his breath as he led his men into the Centre.

Jarod and Hammond helped Jack onto the Gulf Stream into the anxious arms of Janet. The healer displaced the lover and she began to attend him. Sydney was calming Broots and Angelo and Miss Parker smiled uncharacteristically at Jarod as he stepped aboard.

"Teal'c, can you fly this thing?" Hammond asked aware of Teal'c abilities with the death glider hybrid that had almost cost him and Jack their lives.

"I am well acquainted with this type of craft, it was necessary preparation for the..." he paused, "other craft that we have developed." Teal'c smiled and nodded.

"Good you're my copilot. Doctor, keep these two together untill we can get them back to the mountain," Hammond pointed at Jarod and Jack. "The rest of you are coming with us to Colorado Springs. You will then be put into isolation until we can determine what will be done with you." Hammond put a hand on Janet's shoulder. "Was the other matter dealt with?"

"Yes, it was." It was not Janet but Sydney who answered. Hammond paused. "We have much to talk about General Hammond. For now, I can only thank you for assisting in getting my boys out." Sydney was looking at Jarod who was sitting with Miss Parker both of them were searching each other's faces. There was huge potential for an emotional outburst of epic proportions from Miss Parker. Well, at least from her, it would have been a tear or a genuine laugh of joy.

"Yes, sir. There will be much to discuss when we get to where we are going." Hammond assured Sydney as he and Teal'c moved up to the cockpit.

Janet was struggling with Jack's flight suit to get at the wounds. Angelo crept next to her and started to help. She motioned to her bag which he retrieved it along with a blanket.

Angelo lifted Jack's right hand and examined it. The blood on it was still fresh.

"For Catherine." Jack spoke lucidly looking forward in the cabin at Miss Parker. She chose that moment to make eye contact with him. Understanding crossed her face and Jarod held her as she shuddered with total comprehension.

"Colonel? How are you doing?" Janet asked Jack. He was shivering, and from the other signs and the two puncture wounds in the inside of his arm, she had a suspicion as to why.

"Going to be rough night, Doc." His smile was forced.

"I'll get you through it. We're taking you home." Janet leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

"Home?" Jack questioned wistfully and let her treat him as he had so many times before, as he would again. The one comforting thought that would see him through the coming pain was with her, with Janet, he was home.

The headlines hit the Washington Post the three days later and then all the news networks picked it up. A shadowy corporation that stole children and raised them for nefarious reasons had been discovered and raided. What was left of the Centre and its personnel were in custody and facing a plethora of charges ranging from kidnapping to treason. Special Forces from the United States Air Force became involved due to issues of national security. There were only two fatalities, apparent suicides of the two men who were identified as the chief operators, a Misters Raines and Lyle. Little is known of their identity. The CEO, a Mister Parker, had been allegedly lost in a plane crash sometime earlier.

Jack put the newspaper down and rubbed his right hand over his now broken left wrist, which had broken during the throes of withdrawal. The bruising from the broken nose had faded mostly, but it was hard to tell under the metal guard and bandages that Janet had placed over his nose and face. He'd had worse playing hockey. The bullet wounds to arm and leg were healing nicely and some therapy was planned. Just another day in the office for him. Jack had to limp because it was hard to wield crutches with an arm in a sling.

The worse part had been the withdrawal. Jack had refused to let Janet give him any drugs to ease the effects. He had to do it again cold turkey. It was his way to fight and win against an old enemy.

Daniel had been impossible to shut up upon his arrival and had hovered with Teal'c at his side during the withdrawal. While it was a sign of weakness, Jack didn't mind Daniel there; it had actually been a comfort; yes, and a comfort to know he had such friends. Now Daniel knew why Jack had understood and helped him through his sarcophagus withdrawal. Daniel was going to be left out of the loop as to Jack's real identity, if you could call John Doe #1 an identity, and his life at the Centre and only was to be told that Jack intervened due to the prior attempt on him and the attack on Jarod. Daniel had learned that some secrets were meant to be kept and would only be explained when they decided to become known. It was just so "Jack O'Neill."

Jack had to applaud Hammond. Leaking it all to the press had been a stroke of pure genius. He could still remember the look in Hammond's eyes as Lyle died. They had more in common that both had realized and secrets yet to discover. Though there were not enough years between them, Jack would have prayed for a father like Hammond. The loneliness that gnawed on his heart like his own Serengeti lion for nearly all his life, only sated during his time with Sara and Charlie, and eased with his growing relationship with Janet, took another bite of him. Jack O'Neill was still John Doe #1.

Hammond sat at the head of the conference room table and looked at the five refuges from The Centre, Broots, Angelo, Miss Parker, Sydney, and Jarod.

"You all understand that what you have been made privy too is a national secret. There are only two options for you now."

"General Hammond, you have been gracious to us and perhaps too kind, but I think I can speak for my fellows here, none of us would like to live the rest of our life in confinement." Sydney began. "This secret of yours, this gate, is our way out?"

"General, I know these people, Lyle and Raines may be gone and my father but there were more people, others behind The Centre." Miss Parker played nervously with an unlit cigarette.

"They will never let us live knowing we know what we know. They will come to kill us, send out sweepers." Broots got up and began to pace.

"There is no place safe on this planet," It Jack O'Neill who made the comment as he limped into the room.

"I can't believe that, This planet?" It was Jarod who snorted scoffing.

"Jarod you're the genius; yes, other planets." Jack's look caused Jarod to believe.

"We have a beta site and an off world training area. Your combined abilities, as a Pretender, a Sweeper and psychological manipulation for lack of a better description could all be very useful to our troops and off world allies. If that doesn't work out, we can also arrange for you to be settled into a nice little planet where you can truly disappear and create new lives." Hammond looked at Jack who nodded in agreement. "People, the gate opens in one hour you have that long to decide." Hammond rose and approached Jack. They left the other five to decide.

The agreement was easy and unanimous.

Jarod stood at the bottom of the ramp of the Stargate, next to him Miss Parker. Both were dressed in BDU's ready to go through the active gate. Behind them, Sydney was at the top of the ramp looking down on the three people yet alive who meant more to him than he had ever know. Sydney looked up at the control room and caught Hammond's soft smile and brief nod.

"John, I mean Jack, I don't know what to say about all this. You've given me a life." Jarod stammered, feeling his throat tighten with emotions still foreign to him.

"Jarod, you want to right wrongs, make things better for people. You've been doing it one at a time, now you can do it on a really really big scale." Jack smiled through the pain of standing.

"On a galactic scale, Jarod," Janet touched the young man on the arm.

"Fine, just send me cigarettes." Miss Parker tried to be her usual callous self.

"You're quitting." Three voices harmonized.

"Oh, for crying out loud," Miss Parker snapped and nudged Jarod. Love was blooming for the two; it had been destined, as they had been childhood friends and almost sweethearts. Jarod was man enough to let several years of being hunted by the object of his affection, and Miss Parker was finally able to smile.

"Jack, this is the only way Sidney and I can try to make up for everything."

Jarrod handed Jack a small envelope.

Jack opened it up and read the yellowed newspaper article. Janet felt him slump against her. She looked in his face in disbelief. There was a single tear trailing down his face.

"Sweet" Jack whispered and carefully gave Jarod a hug. Overcome with emotion, Jack limped out of the gate room.

Janet hugged Jarod and then quickly followed Jack. He was in the third floor conference room. The article in front of him and he was pressing it flat. Janet stood next to him as he handed her the article.

"I have a family." Jack looked up at her and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Janet read the article from dated in the early sixties from a local Minnesota newspaper.

"Today an entire neighborhood attended the memorial service for a six year old boy. The child was one-half of a set of twins known to be precocious and gifted. Both had been tested at an early age and found to have genius IQ's. However, while doing schoolwork on a level more than twice their ages the boys always seemed like your normal average grade-schoolers.

"They enjoyed all sports, especially Hockey, Curling, and Ice fishing. The latter brought grief to the family. It was a typical January day; the boys went out to their favorite lake with their father to ice fish. The boys had wandered away from the ice shanty. The father found one of his two sons nearly frozen to death laying next to a large hole in the ice, his brother gone. While Herculean efforts were undertaken, the missing twin was never found and it was determined he had fallen through the ice and drowned. The conditions made it impossible to search for his body.

Jack was free now, because he knew who he was, had been, and had become.

Hammond entered the room and Janet passed the article to him. Jack was staring at the gate unwilling to make eye contact with either of them. His hand had slipped from Janet's waist.

"Son, take some time off, Call it "Family leave." Doctor, I think his physician ought to go with him. " Hammond set the article down in front of Jack and rested a hand on his shoulder.

Life was a circle. A gray haired stranger from the future who he had helped escape in 1969, and the Air Force Captain he had found brutalized in 77, the defiant smart ass emotionally crippled retired Colonel of 1997, who helped him reopen the gate was coming to terms with the forgotten darkness of his life and had taken his first steps to true recovery and freedom .

**Epilogue:**

It was an odd place to live, well, for those used to military housing and barracks, but Jack and Janet approached the front door on the address they had been given. Both were dressed in civvies. Jack still had his left arm in a sling but had forgone the cane and there was barely a trace of bruising on his face.

Janet knocked on the door. Jack stood out of the direct vision of any who would open the door, covering his nervousness with a quick recon of the houseboat and the marina. He was nervous and barely able to contain it.

"Can I help you?" A young man in his mid twenties asked when he opened the door. He looked to Janet and then to Jack. His face went white as he stared slack jawed as Jack turned to look at him directly. "Dad, oh G-d dad! You got to come here." There was an almost panic to the boy's voice.

"Oh, for crying out loud what is it, Sam?" Came a voice from the interior. A body followed the voice and the door was flung wide.

Janet and the young man named Sam both gasped as the two men looked and recognized each other.

Angus MacGyver looked at the face of his twin brother, Ansley, for the first time in four decades.

FINIS

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word count 22,649 total

nc 17 portion available upon request.


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